New Internet Explorer Commercial Proudly Proclaims IE Sucks a Bit Less Now (VIDEO)

At the very least, you can say that the people at Microsoft are aware of just how much people hate Internet Explorer. For them, that’s progress — which just so happens to be the tag-line at the end of this commercial.

In this new ad for the most recent version of IE — the one that comes bundled with Windows 8 — Microsoft takes aim at the hordes of Internet commenters who love to make it known how much they detest IE and everything it stands for. You know, the “IE is only good for downloading other browsers” guys. In other words, the guys who are absolutely correct.

It’s a decent commercial and it provides a few small chuckles, though the music is a bit over-the-top and the “troll” they cast is a ridiculous caricaturization (multiple lava lamps?). The problem is that it’s not going to come close to doing what Microsoft wants it to do.

The IE ship has long since sailed for all savvy web users. The incremental improvements made to IE recently still far far short of the usability, stability and customizability of competing browsers. In the years since the absolutely putrid Internet Explorer 6 was released, this demographic has long since ditched IE for the vastly superior Firefox and Chrome. A message of “IE now sucks a bit less” isn’t going to win back any of these users. Frankly, it’s a waste of time to try.

It would make far more sense for Microsoft to refocus its efforts on preventing the loss of even more IE users. The browser, however improved it may be, still sucks. But it also still has about a 50 percent market share around the world. This base of users has yet to discover Firefox and Chrome — and Microsoft should be doing everything it can to make sure it never does.